TORONTO (AP) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will announce Tuesday his plan to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees and he says all 10 of Canada’s provincial premiers support bringing that many in.
Trudeau hasn’t backed down from a pledge to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by Dec. 31 despite pushback by some following the deadly attacks in Paris.
Details of how the refugees will be brought over and where they will be housed are expected to be announced Tuesday.
“Everyone agrees that Canada must do more and must welcome 25,000 refugees,” Trudeau said after meeting with provincial leaders late Monday.
Tuesday’s announcement is sure to raise alarm in the U.S. where many Republican governors have said they don’t want any Syrian refugees.
Trudeau said robust security screening continues to be a high priority.
Quebec Premier Phillipe Couillard said accepting refugees and immigrants is part of Canadian tradition.
“There was no one sitting at the table that is not interested in seeing refugees come,” Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said.
Immigration Minister John McCallum said he spoke to Canada’s big city mayors about how they can help resettle the refugees.
Canada has long prided itself on opening its doors wider than any nation to asylum seekers. In times of crisis in decades past, Canada resettled refugees quickly and in large numbers. It airlifted more than 5,000 people from Kosovo in the late 1990s, more than 5,000 from Uganda in 1972 and resettled 60,000 Vietnamese in 1979-80. More than 1.2 million refugees have arrived in Canada since World War II.
Former Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who lost the Oct. 19 election to Trudeau, had declined to resettle more Syrian refugees, despite the haunting image of a drowned 3-year-old boy washed up on a Turkish beach that focused global attention on the migrant crisis stemming from the civil war. The boy had relatives inCanada and the refugee crisis became a major campaign issue.
Brad Wall, the Conservative premier of Saskatchewan province, said he has problems with the deadline of Dec. 31 for security reasons, but believes Canada should welcome the refugees.
More than 4 million Syrians have fled their country since the conflict began in 2011.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
And Trump thought Minnesota was too cold for refugees…
I really wish Canada was further south. It always seems like such a more adult country in which to live, but I live with a bunch of people who can’t handle subzero temps.
“OMG!! Look, Canada is going to bring in 2,500,000 Syrian refugees, right next to our border!!!”
Alertly,
Donald Trump
You know what this means don’t you? We’ll have to make a 4,000 mile Wall on our Northern border to keep out Da Terror babies. Gee, I hope t-Rump can afford all those Golden Doors and t-Rump logos above that “Beautiful Wall”. Oh, and we’re gonna get Canada to pay for it too I can already hear him saying…
"You know what, people? They FACT-CHECKED me! Okay. Alright. That’s fine.So - it turned out, the REAL figures are that Canada is now planning on taking in TWENTY FIVE BILLION Muslim jihadi terrorists … ON CHRISTMAS DAY ALONE! See, Muslims don’t believe in Santa Claus, they don’t believe in Baby Jesus, so on Christmas Day, they can do ANYTHING - it’s like their FREEBIE Day: they all receive like this Get Out of Jail Free card from Moo Hammid, and it doesn’t matter WHAT they do, what horrible things they get up to, they STILL get to cash in on the 75 virgins. 75, that’s a number I hear is maybe even LOW: it could be MORE. That’s right. That’s right: you heard that right. And you know the plan, right? The PLAN is, the very NEXT day, BOXING Day. they’re all gonna mass right up against that TOADILY undefended border - NO WALL AT ALL, folks - and RUSH IN, all at once. Do the math, people: the MATH says, 25 billion Muslims, 5,000 miles of TOADILY undefended border, 5,280 feet per every mile - that means almost ONE THOUSAND MUSLIMS PER FOOT. It’ll be just like the Texas A&M kick-off deefense. And then - the beheadings begin. And you know, Obama and Clinton and that commie, and of course the media - we know the media, they’ll just deny it. But the fact is, they’ll ALL be doing the beheadings. Well, maybe not 100 puhcent; I assume some of them are good people.’